Conflict of Cultures on the Basketball Court

BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. —  Duaa Hamoud holds a basketball to her hip. She is wearing a long blue robe in a gym at Bridgeview’s Universal School. Her head is covered by a white scarf pulled tightly around her neck. Not a wisp of hair shows.

Around her, other high school girls dressed in similar flowing robes shoot a few casual baskets while they wait for practice to begin. There are no men in the gym -- no male coaches, no boys from school, no dads or brothers in the bleachers.

So when the coach arrives and the real training starts, they can peel off their Islamic dress, exposing their sweatpants and short-sleeved T-shirts.

“We’d run if we noticed a man peeking in the window,” Hamoud, 16, said. “We’re not allowed to be seen by guys without [Islamic dress]. We’ve all learned to accept that.”

But the girls can’t accept that they are allowed to compete only against girls’ basketball teams from other Muslim schools. There are only four in the Chicago area, they say, and their competition isn’t exactly tough.

Since last year they’ve been beseeching coach Farida Abusafa, 26, to ask public schools and non-Muslim private schools whether their girls’ teams would be willing to compete against the Universal School.

But the schools would have to agree to bar men and boys above the age of puberty from watching the games.

“It’s not like it’s a sin to play a public school,” Abusafa said. “The problem is the males coming to the game.”

The dilemma underscores the balancing act many Muslims perform as they toggle between American and Middle Eastern culture. Many of these girls straddle the divide with ease, chatting on their cellphones at the mall one minute, observing the school’s strict sex segregation the next. But the girls are also mindful of the challenges they face.

“It’s something you have to decide you want to do,” said Shaylin Najeeullah, 16, a member of the varsity basketball team. “You can stay true to what you believe in or you can conform to everybody else and get lost.”

The Universal School’s principal, Farhat Siddiqi, said there was no reason the girls couldn’t play teams from public schools or other private schools as long as the prohibition on men was strictly observed. But she worried that parents from other schools might object.

“I don’t want to have to impose our religious requirements on anyone else,” Siddiqi said.

The Universal School, a coed private school next to the Mosque Foundation, is a member of the Illinois High School Assn. So nothing would prevent the girls from playing other public or private schools, said Beth Sauser, assistant executive director of the association responsible for girls’ basketball.

“They would have to contact whatever schools they want to play and work it out through the athletic directors,” Sauser said.

Rich Piatchek, athletic director at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, acknowledged that setting up games that excluded men might prove difficult.

“That could be an issue,” Piatchek said. “I can’t imagine that the parents aren’t going to want to come and watch their children play. Most schools would probably have the same problem.”

Christine Bochnak, the varsity girls’ basketball coach at Sandburg High School in Orland Park, said complying with the ban on males could be a little tricky -- her assistant coach is a man -- but she thought the girls from both schools could benefit from the experience.

“The diversity would be good,” Bochnak said. “I think it’s always good when there’s exposure to other cultures and ideas. It’s a life lesson and that’s what we’re supposed to be teaching when we’re coaching basketball -- teaching about life.”

Conceivably, the Muslim girls could play in headscarves, sweatpants and long sleeves. But the bulky attire might make playing difficult, they said.

“It would probably be hot,” said Shetha Hamoud, 12, Duaa’s sister, who plays on the junior varsity team. Playing in the long gown, called a jilbab, would be worse, Duaa Hamoud said.

“It would be like trying to play in a dress,” she said.

Not all the girls’ parents require them to wear Islamic dress when they aren’t in school. But Universal requires girls to wear the hijab -- the headscarf -- on school grounds beginning in the sixth grade. Girls and boys are in separate classrooms and eat lunch at different times.

Girls don’t sit in the bleachers to watch boys’ games unless they have a brother playing, and then school authorities encourage a parent to be present. It’s understood that fathers and brothers won’t watch their daughters and sisters play.

“You just describe it when you get home and hope that’s sufficient to tell him what happened during the game,” Najeeullah said.

The girls say they don’t mind the dress code.

“It was made obligatory by God ... to guard our chastity and our modesty,” Hamoud said. They automatically pull on scarves and sweatpants or pop the jilbab over their gym clothes whenever they leave the court for water or bathroom breaks.

Abusafa said she had considered approaching public schools and other private schools, but she had hesitated. She believes the contests would help improve the girls’ games, but she’s worried that too much competition could shatter their confidence. Whereas girls at public schools typically practice six times a week, at Universal it’s only twice, because they split gym time with the boys.

Scheduling presents another problem. The boys’ games start first, throwing off the season for the girls’ teams. They start their games several weeks later than the non-Muslim girls’ teams, Abusafa said. She has considered asking the other schools to play exhibition games, but Illinois High School Assn. rules stipulate that those games count toward the season total, so most schools probably would refuse.

Abusafa has also contemplated the possibility of inviting the schools to play at Universal -- even footing the transportation and referee costs -- to avoid forcing those schools to comply with segregation rules. Bochnak, for one, said she would consider that possibility.

“I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” she said.

The girls at Universal say they wouldn’t be upset if the other schools turned them down.

But they look forward to the possibility that they might say yes.

“We just get sick of playing the same schools,” said Rana Othman, 14, a ninth-grader. “It would be more challenging to play the public schools.”